Consistent modding

Slutmonkey57b

In the famous "found a safe" thread in Ah, the OP was banned, and the decision given on the ban list by BuffyBot was "trolling". Putting aside that I'm not sure how he was trolling his own thread, the reason given by the same mod in the prison forum was "multiple accounts". Which is it? Multiple trolls on the same thread seem to have been ignored by mods, so I wonder how this came to be noticed. The mod states this thread had escaped their notice up to that point, and they need to be certain it isn't a troll of the site.

The thread covers 50+ pages, and I'm not convinced the mod could have read it all in between imposing other bans, and come to the conclusion that only this person needed a ban.

Furthermore the mod appears to be in a taunting mood in the prison forum.

BuffyBot wrote: »

Hmm..and in response to the other two questions?

I just don't see any consistent decision making going on in this case. Multiple trolling posts have been overlooked. The thread is stickied on ah, so clearly the op wasn't considered a troll by any of the other mods who have been looking after it for 50+ pages, and would have a clearer idea of what the op had been up to than someone who only walked into it a few moments before the ban.

KyussBishop

Yes this seems to be resolved now, judging by the Prison thread:
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056887968

I know there was a thread on this recently already, but the "shoot first, ask questions later" policy when it comes to multiple accounts (and particularly the intonation with which it's dealt with on the Prison forum), is pretty badly handled, and unnecessarily aggravates a lot of people, making boards look bad in the process.

When it comes to multiple accounts, if someone isn't a really obvious re-reg or troll, there should probably be a 24-hour cooldown between flagging someone for banning, and actually banning them; with the opportunity for mods to comment on the appropriateness of the ban and such (or even give the user themselves an opportunity to discuss, before banning).

If that were done in this case, would have given the AH mods a chance to step in and prevent this unnecessary aggrievement/trouble for the user (who just spent much of last night literally digging a safe out of concrete, partially to satisfy the interest generated on AH, thus naturally would feel quite unhappy at being banned in return, after all that effort).

Slutmonkey57b

Good point. Furthermore, it appears that multiple accounts of any kind are now banned, which is a restriction I wasn't aware of.

Banning someone who re registers to get around a ban makes perfect sense. But it seems that derailing the thread and banning the op in this case was overkill. Why not simply pm the ah mods to check into it, or indeed the op themselves. At worst, the op was guilty of entertaining people.

Tar.Aldarion

Since when is having multiple accounts not allowed? It always was before if the user was not up to no good/getting around a ban.

Slutmonkey57b

No idea. Apparently it's a serious crime on boards nowadays, and you have to explain to a mod at length why two accounts might share the 1 IP address.

ibarelycare

Buffybot strikes again. Serious attitude problem and power tripping going on there.

Galadriel

Also it appears from reading the prison forum that BuffyBot thought he was trolling, but he put a picture up on his twitter account proving the safe was real.

GhostInTheRuins

Well done buffybot. Great ****ing job.


I love this bit another mod has posted in the thread now:

if anyone mentions what happened in this thread, then they will be banned for a long time.

What a joke.

Pig Benis

Terrible modding from Buffybot.
"Oh noes two accounts on the same IP, better siteban them!!!"

2nd complaint about Buffybot in a very short space, saying sorry really isnt that hard.

Gosub

GhostInTheRuins wrote: »

Well done buffybot. Great ****ing job.


I love this bit another mod has posted in the thread now:



What a joke.

Yeah that seems a bit odd to me. "I mentioned the war once, but I think I got away with it."

Wibbs

GhostInTheRuins wrote: »

I love this bit another mod has posted in the thread now:

To be fair G, regardless of ones view on the matter the Safe thread(which has me hooked too ) would go off topic and downhill bloody rapido if it continued on that course, so IMHO that was a good call. Now we can all get back to being addicted to the story. Much better here in Feedback to have other discussions.

LizT

Are multiple accounts actually allowed? I'd love some clarification on that. I only have the one account but I have considered making another to post specific queries in certain forums that I don't want on this account. I know there are posters who have done this. I think some clarification is needed in this area, obviously creating multiple accounts to get around a ban isn't allowed but are side accounts allowed at all?


I appreciate the admins are volunteers and they have to put up with a lot of shit, especially in the prison forum. However I think the policy of "ban first, ask questions later" is open to abuse (or at least, that seems to be the policy recently). Boards is a great site, with plenty of active contributors. Some of the admins seem to be creating an "us and them" type scenario though. The way some users have been spoken to in the prison forum is quite frankly, shocking. It's condescending and very passive aggressive. If any user spoke to another user like that on the site, I wouldn't be surprised to see bans or infractions handed out.

A little consideration goes a long way. We're all human, we all make mistakes. When this happens, I'm not saying an admin needs to crawl on their hands and knees and beg for forgiveness but for God's sake, it's not that hard to say "I hold my hands up, my bad, apologies for the disruption". There's no need for any passive aggressiveness, it's experiences like that that put people off using the site.

That's just my opinion on the issue, sorry for rambling

Mountainsandh

Well I posted in AH before I saw the mod note in the Safe thread, but I for one would be worried if Mr Mountains decided to open an account, seeing as we have the same IP _he has no interest so far but I of course told him about the Safe thread . What if we both ended up on a thread like the Safe thread, bantering away, and got accused of being a single user ?
What if my kids were old enough to post, and ended up getting into hot water on some forum here ? Would I be banned then too ?

I'm pretty shocked at what happened and the way new users have been treated.

Wibbs

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Since when is having multiple accounts not allowed? It always was before if the user was not up to no good/getting around a ban.

Really T? Now I'm probably wrong here, but I understood it was always kinda frowned upon, except in special circumstances and the mods/admins were made aware of it upfront. Reasons might be say a mod who wanted to post in another forum without the mod tag, or paid for business accounts where the guy or gal wanted another non biz personal account to post under. Plus I think it was more acceptable before the close account feature came along. EG someone with a well known handle who wanted to start over anew could stop posting under that name and create a new "fresh" handle kinda thing. The close account option has kinda rendered that obsolete. Like I say I'm probably way off here, but that was my understanding re dupe accounts anyway.

Mountainsandh

LizT wrote: »

Are multiple accounts actually allowed? I'd love some clarification on that. I only have the one account but I have considered making another to post specific queries in certain forums that I don't want on this account. I know there are posters who have done this. I think some clarification is needed in this area, obviously creating multiple accounts to get around a ban isn't allowed but are side accounts allowed at all?

LizT I think I asked a Mod the question once, or in some sys forum or something, and I the reply I got was that it was not allowed.

I too would like to post in some forums "incognito" (in forums that do not have the anonymous option), not for evil minded reasons, but because of job related issues, but it seems that it's not permitted.

And then as I said above, there is the issue of being "suspected" to have multiple accounts if people who share your IP (and potentially your outlook, and some ways of expressing themselves) decide to sign on.


edit : actually, I checked my PMs. I originally posted the question in the Helpdesk section, haven't checked it again, but I think the answer was just "No, you can't have multiple accounts". But I was then PMd by a very helpful Mod who explained that in some instances people may be allowed to have dual accounts, if their reason is genuine (and the Mods deem it worthy of another account) and nothing to do with infractions and bans of course. I never took the offer up, I thought in my situation it's probably safer (for my job issues) to not enter into any discussions at all.

Spear

LizT wrote: »

Are multiple accounts actually allowed?

From the Terms of Use, section 6.2:

"You will not create more than one personal profile."


That's been there for many years.

LizT

Spear wrote: »

From the Terms of Use, section 6.2:

"You will not create more than one personal profile."


That's been there for many years.

Fair enough.

My name is URL

LizT wrote: »

Are multiple accounts actually allowed? I'd love some clarification on that.

According to that prison thread, and admitted by the OP is that one of the accounts was set up for use as a 'sockpuppet', which has always been against site rules afaik.

Tar.Aldarion

Wibbs wrote: »

Really T? Now I'm probably wrong here, but I understood it was always kinda frowned upon, except in special circumstances and the mods/admins were made aware of it upfront. Reasons might be say a mod who wanted to post in another forum without the mod tag, or paid for business accounts where the guy or gal wanted another non biz personal account to post under. Plus I think it was more acceptable before the close account feature came along. EG someone with a well known handle who wanted to start over anew could stop posting under that name and create a new "fresh" handle kinda thing. The close account option has kinda rendered that obsolete. Like I say I'm probably way off here, but that was my understanding re dupe accounts anyway.

I dunno when it 'changed' or if it ever did, I've just seen it mentioned, from personal experience, dozens of times over the years and the answer always was "it's fine as long as they aren't getting around a ban" etc.

boards.ie Terms of Use:

Revised: 02/07/'12

I don't know if this rule was there before that.

Oryx

I too recall that two accounts was accepted (though not encouraged) at one point.

In the safe thread though the admin concerned got it wrong. Clearly they banned the accounts without checking anything with the local mods, hence the reversal this evening when they did learn more. I understand that admins deal with lying trolls a lot, and may have a jaundiced view, but this incident shows the system of checks they use is not perfect. It fails. And a tiny bit more graciousness in the climbdown when they do unban someone wouldn't go amiss. This event had a big audience and may well have damaged the image of boards because of this poor handling.

Or maybe no one cares

BuffyBot

OK folks: to tackle this one straight on.

As pointed out we do have a rule against multiple accounting, and there was sufficient doubt about some of the posting on that thread in my mind that questions needed to be asked. Indeed, as it turned out one of the people involved was using a second account. Once we got to the bottom of it, and I was satisfied that the two users were seperate, they were both unbanned and are free to post again. The other account, as the OP admitted not knowing about the multi-account rule, I wrote off as a genuine error and not as a malicious attempt to sockpuppet or mislead and once that was cleared up the issue got resolved.

Certainly no one was banned for the fun of it. When we ban, we do it because we have reason to suspect something is not always as it seems, and we often have data that isn't visible to others.

With regard to rudeness: I'm sorry if anyone thinks that there was rudeness on that thread. There were simple questions asked, and as I explained the main point is not apologies or begging, just to find the facts, acknowledge the issue and then get it resolved. I even threw in a smiley to try and encourage things along in a friendly manner (I try not to smiley in general..but damned if you do, damned if you don't, eh?). No taunting, no agenda - just trying to come to a resolution and not spend my Saturday night dealing with it and see could normal service resume as soon as possible.

People can read into the questions as they wish, but the fact remains that sometimes, we just tend to be direct and for the most part once we get an honest answer, we'll work with the people involved. Sometimes that takes a little more digging into what's going on, and sometimes that takes a little time. Sometimes, you end up with people's cover stories falling away, which we see plenty of. Sometimes there is a lot more going on than is visible to users on the basis of a Prison forum thread.

It's not that we don't care, but it's not a popularity contest either (and can't be). If we didn't care we wouldn't even be countering such claims and doing this at all.

Either way: OP I'm not sure which issue concerns you most as there seems to be a jumble of two seperate things here: AH modding, and a site banning.

To address your query re: trolling. It is a catch all term - you can troll a thread, a forum, a site, a user etc in a variety of ways.

P_1

Cheers for replying BB, only concern is that you (Admins in plural) tend to ban first and then put the onus on the banned one to prove to why they shouldn't have been banned. Personally I think it should be the other way round but I see why you do it that way. At a guess I'd say about 99% of people banned this way would be of the re-reg troll variety?

Reati

BuffyBot wrote: »

As pointed out we do have a rule against multiple accounting, and there was sufficient doubt about some of the posting on that thread in my mind that questions needed to be asked.

But it looks like you didn't ask questions. You pulled your Bantrigger and Son0vagun posted to ask why / make his case. Perhaps there were PM's sent or something, but it feels like it was after the ban was issued.

I'm also a little curious into how you would come across someone having mulitple accounts on a single IP. Feels like information you'd have to look up in the admin tools for an IP / account instead of getting a notification to go investigate....

BuffyBot

At a guess I'd say about 99% of people banned this way would be of the re-reg troll variety?

99% is probably a tad high, but an extremely large majority that's approaching that: easily.

I'm also a little curious into how you would come across someone having mulitple accounts on a single IP. Feels like information you'd have to look up in the admin tools for an IP / account instead of getting a notification to go investigate....

Various ways, from reported posts by users, Mods flagging things up, PM's sent by other users sent to us, to just seeing patterns in postings to sometimes noticing things in threads/forums we read ourselves..there are as many ways as there are users sometimes.

Tombi!

BB, look, you seem to have a somewhat of an attitude issue when you're dealing with things in prison (at least in the few threads I saw).
Firstly, I get that usually 99% of the time it'll end up with the admins being right and at times, a tirade of abuse against you by people who are rightfully site banned but the way you posted just now in this thread was nice and civil.
Sometimes it doesn't come across that way in the prison forum.

And I assumed (rightfully) that the similey was a genuine attempt at trying to get the guy to answer but other times it's not like that.
I've been a member of sites where the attitude is literally "f**k you, we're right and you're wrong. If you try to argue and prove us wrong, we'll change the argument". And I get that this is a private site but sometimes you tend to come across more as a "you're wrong and I'm right and that's that" kinda guy rather than "well here's the large amount of proof against you so can you say anything to dispute it".

I'm not talking about cases where it's painfully obvious that the banned user is a trouble maker (like with a massive amount of bans/infractions or obvious personal abuse/shilling/spam/whatever).

I'm really not trying to have a go at you but come on, this quote does sound like you were trying to goad the OP:
What hard work would that be? Registering multiple accounts? Should I look for some more?
That wasn't direct. Direct would have been: you have multiple accounts on your IP address, once was registered recently, do you have anything to say/do you know anything about that?

But then again, I dunno. If you were doing a bad job, I'd imagine you wouldn't be admin so it was just what I noticed on how you seem to handle things at times.

humbert

What I genuinely can't understand is now he got banned for trolling (in the broader sense of the word) when all his posts in the last few days where in a thread the mod states they weren't aware of.

RoundyMooney

I think it's a given that an (active) admin is a difficult role.

In this case, and correct me if I'm wrong, some cynicism seems to have crept in, in this case regarding the travails of duplicate accounts/IP matches who find themselves sitebanned. This is perfectly understandable, and as someone who has moderated in the past, very hard to avoid, as I fell victim to it myself at times-when I saw the same things happening again and again. I'm not sure what the solution is, without placing the blame on any one person, which would be unfair.

Another issue, and again it's a very necessary facility that admins need to do their work, is reliance on forum moderators, and the info they provide. The point I'm making is that an admin decision may not have been arrived at in isolation, and while the info is more often than not bang on the money, if someone gets it wrong at forum level, then the admin cannot carry all the blame, even though they have all the responsibility.

pickarooney

BuffyBot wrote: »

No taunting, no agenda - just trying to come to a resolution and not spend my Saturday night dealing with it and see could normal service resume as soon as possible.

A psychiatrist would have a field day with the question of why you're so hell-bent on sabotaging your weekends

BuffyBot

Brutal Deluxe wrote: »

I'm really not trying to have a go at you but come on, this quote does sound like you were trying to goad the OP:
What hard work would that be? Registering multiple accounts? Should I look for some more?
That wasn't direct. Direct would have been: you have multiple accounts on your IP address, once was registered recently, do you have anything to say/do you know anything about that?

..and I'll bet you dollars to donuts, as they say, that if I had said it that someone, somewhere would still read into it as being problematic. Now, as I said, bear in mind the multiple accounts were the issue, not the OP's thread (whose origination of it, I wasn't aware of, just the slew of accounts popping up and looking like sock puppets), so the question there was simple enough in my eyes.

Anyway, I'll take on board what folks are saying - but just remember that not everything is quite as it seems sometimes.

As to the OP: if (regarding the posts you refer to, which strikes me as a seperate issue) there are some you feel weren't actioned etc, drop me a PM and I'll look at them for you.